[PATCH v2 0/2] commit-msg.sample: reject messages that would confuse "git am"
- From
- Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com>
- Date
- Feb 13, 2026, 14:34 UTC
- Message-ID
- <cover.1770993281.git.phillip.wood@dunelm.org.uk>
- In-Reply-To
- <20260206090358.GA2761602@coredump.intra.peff.net>
From: Phillip Wood <phillip.wood@dunelm.org.uk>
This series adds a check to the sample commit-msg hook to reject commit messages where the body of the message contains lines starting with "diff -" and "Index: ". Such lines confuse "git am".
Changes since V1:
- Allow subjects to start with "diff -" as they end up in an email header and so do not confuse "git am"
- Allow "---" lines as they are useful when preparing patches.
Base-Commit: b2826b52eb7caff9f4ed6e85ec45e338bf02ad09 Published-As: https://github.com/phillipwood/git/releases/tag/pw%2Fsample-commit-msg-reject-diff%2Fv2 View-Changes-At: https://github.com/phillipwood/git/compare/b2826b52e...494f4df68 Fetch-It-Via: git fetch https://github.com/phillipwood/git pw/sample-commit-msg-reject-diff/v2
Phillip Wood (2): templates: add .gitattributes entry for sample hooks templates: detect commit messages containing diffs
.editorconfig | 2 +- .gitattributes | 1 + templates/hooks/commit-msg.sample | 54 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-- 3 files changed, 54 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
Range-diff against v1:
1: 5f5e3091435 = 1: 5f5e3091435 templates: add .gitattributes entry for sample hooks
2: e75978b9591 ! 2: 494f4df6865 templates: detect commit messages containing diffs
@@ Metadata
## Commit message ##
templates: detect commit messages containing diffs
- If a commit message contains a diff that is not indented then "git
- am" will treat that diff as part of the patch rather than as part
- of the commit message. This allows it to apply email messages that
- were created by adding a commit message in front of a regular diff
+ If the body of a commit message contains a diff that is not indented
+ then "git am" will treat that diff as part of the patch rather than
+ as part of the commit message. This allows it to apply email messages
+ that were created by adding a commit message in front of a regular diff
without adding the "---" separator used by "git format-patch". This
often surprises users [1-4] so add a check to the sample "commit-msg"
- hook to reject messages that would confuse "git am".
-
- Detecting if the message contains a diff is complicated by the hook
- being passed the message before it is cleaned up so we need to ignore
- any diffs below the scissors line. There are also two possible
- config keys to check to find the comment character at the start
- of the scissors line.
+ hook to reject messages that would confuse "git am". Even if a project
+ does not use an email based workflow it is not uncommon for people
+ to generate patches from it and apply them with "git am". Therefore
+ it is still worth discouraging the creation of commit messages that
+ would not be applied correctly.
+
+ A further source of confusion when applying patches with "git am" is
+ the "---" separator that is added by "git format patch". If a commit
+ message body contains that line then it will be truncated by "git am".
+ As this is often used by patch authors to add some commentary that
+ they do not want to end up in the commit message when the patch is
+ applied, the hook does not complain about the presence of "---" lines
+ in the message.
+
+ Detecting if the message contains a diff is complicated by the
+ hook being passed the message before it is cleaned up so we need to
+ ignore any diffs below the scissors line. There are also two possible
+ config keys to check to find the comment character at the start of
+ the scissors line. The first paragraph of the commit message becomes
+ the email subject header which beings "Subject: " and so does not
+ need to be checked. The trailing ".*" when matching commented lines
+ ensures that if the comment string ends with a "$" it is not treated
+ as an anchor.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/bcqvh7ahjjgzpgxwnr4kh3hfkksfruf54refyry3ha7qk7dldf@fij5calmscvm
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/git/ca13705ae4817ffba16f97530637411b59c9eb19.camel@scientia.org/
@@ templates/hooks/commit-msg.sample
+ p
+ }'
+)"
-+line="$(sed -n -e "/^${comment_re} -\{8,\} >8 -\{8,\}\$/q
-+ /^diff -/{p;q;}
-+ /^Index: /{p;q;}" "$1")"
++scissors_line="^${comment_re} -\{8,\} >8 -\{8,\}\$"
++comment_line="^${comment_re}.*"
++blank_line='^[ ]*$'
++# Disallow lines starting with "diff -" or "Index: " in the body of the
++# message. Stop looking if we see a scissors line.
++line="$(sed -n -e "
++ # Skip comments and blank lines at the start of the file.
++ /${scissors_line}/q
++ /${comment_line}/d
++ /${blank_line}/d
++ # The first paragraph will become the subject header so
++ # does not need to be checked.
++ : subject
++ n
++ /${scissors_line}/q
++ /${blank_line}/!b subject
++ # Check the body of the message for problematic
++ # prefixes.
++ : body
++ n
++ /${scissors_line}/q
++ /${comment_line}/b body
++ /^diff -/{p;q;}
++ /^Index: /{p;q;}
++ b body
++ " "$1")"
+if test -n "$line"
+then
+ echo >&2 "Message contains a diff that will confuse 'git am'."
3: 83c100a73ec < -: ----------- templates: detect messages that contain a separator line-- 2.52.0.362.g884e03848a9